


life line

by Diaphenia



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Magical Realism, Mild Gore, Season/Series 02, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 22:23:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaphenia/pseuds/Diaphenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You liked it?” Danny asked. He gave her this <i>look</i> and then opened his chest, presenting his heart, still warm and pulsing, to Mindy. Really, as Secret Santa gifts went, this was the cheapest, and the most unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	life line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rikyl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikyl/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the "detachable hearts" series](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/32916) by Electrumqueen. 



> With much love to Rodarawr, who held my hand. 
> 
> Rikyl [tumbled](http://rikyl.tumblr.com/post/70591283562#notes/) about a Welcome to Night Vale tweet: _Last Christmas you gave me your heart. The very next day you were still shaken over this gory and incomprehensible gesture._ She said it reminded her of Mindy/Danny, which is the emotional equivalent of requesting it for Yuletide.

“What are you talking about? I loved it,” Mindy said.

“You liked it?” Danny asked. He gave her this _look_ and then opened his chest, presenting his heart, still warm and pulsing, to Mindy. Really, as Secret Santa gifts went, this was the cheapest, and the most unexpected.

“Danny, what are you doing?” she asked. “I know I wanted something special for Secret Santa, but this is ridiculous.”

It was a move straight out of a rom-com. Her parents had been married for almost forty years and had never exchanged hearts. She’d asked her mom about it just once after seeing _When Harry Met Sally_ ’s second most famous scene, when Billy Crystal told Meg Ryan he wanted to spend the rest of their lives together and then tore out his heart for her. _Unnecessary_ , her mother had told her. _Not worth the risk, and you can still love each other. Besides, you and your brother are going to get our hearts when we pass._

She’d held a heart in her hands before, but that’d been in exchange for a medical degree. This one wasn’t from a corpse or surrounded by a person. She took it from him, gingerly, determined not to drop it. She examined it; the aorta, the veins. He watched as she ran her fingers over the two places it had been sewn back together. One was obviously his ex-wife; the stitches were jagged and the sewing uneven. There was another, with much smaller and more precise stitching. She wondered if that was the college girlfriend he mentioned every so often.

 _Celine_ , she remembered suddenly. The girlfriend was named Celine.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“It’s such a _responsibility_ ,” she said. “I’ve never even had a pet.” No one had ever done this for her before. She always pictured it happening under much better circumstances; the man, who was Hugh Grant, would offer her his heart the day he proposed, preferably while they were on a late stroll in front of the Eiffel Tower, or maybe near the Mona Lisa. Not that she was completely impractical; she was willing to wait until the honeymoon with Casey. But in both those scenarios, the real one, and the one that should’ve happened, she’d at least been dating the guy. Danny and her were friends, nothing more.

He drooped a little. “I got caught up in the moment. It was stupid, but I thought you should have it.”

When Peter burst in a moment later, followed quickly by Jeremy and Morgan, she shoved the heart behind her back. These idiots couldn’t see it, wouldn’t understand it. She could barely understand it, and she was way smarter than them.

She escaped to the courtyard. The heart came with her, of course. She couldn’t exactly leave it on her desk. She brushed the snow off the bench and sat, heart in her palms. She watched the blood pump.

Psychics and the like were mostly scam artists, obviously, but she remembered reading books when she was young about how to read your fortune off the lines of the heart. She wondered if she could show the heart to someone for twenty dollars and have them read Danny’s lines to see how long he’d live or if he’d marry a movie star or what his reason was for giving his heart to her, like he _liked her_ liked her. She wondered if there was a point on his life line that someone could point to and say that moment was the one where he started having feelings for her.

“Mindy? I brought contraband,” Cliff said as he joined her outside, waving the world’s most delicious-looking cookie. “Danny said you were out here.”

He stopped short when he noticed the heart. “Is that the— I heard you had a boyfriend. I thought there was still a window, but that’s not exactly casual.”

“Can I have that cookie?” Mindy asked, because she needed some sugar, and also to not say anything dumb.

“This was a nice party,” he said, his eyes still glued to the heart. “This might be sort of weird, but I’ve never seen someone else’s up close. Can I look?”

In high school, she’d take Family Consumer Education, a blow-off elective designed to delay teen pregnancy by making otherwise normal teenagers pretend eggs were babies. It had been stupid, but she was proud of Eggbert, who unlike many of the eggbabies, made it all the way through the week without getting stepped on, dropped, or traded for weed. Then at lunch on the last day, Jason, who was totally hot, broke it. Even though it wasn’t a real baby, she’d felt sick about the whole thing. “I’d rather you didn’t,” she said.

Cliff sighed. “I need to go home and examine my life choices.”

“So do I,” she said, accepting a kiss on the cheek.

When she looked up next, Cliff was gone, and Danny was watching her from the window.

***

What else was there to do? She went shopping.

Joan at Saks had helped her buy a lot of bags; the crossbody bag she brought to celebrate the royal wedding, the clutch she bought for Suri’s sixth birthday, and the red Hermès Birkin bag that would forever remind her of _Magic Mike_.

This time, though, Joan’s eyes practically bugged out of her head. “I never thought you’d get a heart!” she said, which Mindy would’ve found offensive if Joan didn’t look so jealous. This, Joan explained, was the most important bag Mindy would ever purchase.

Dozens of bags and two glasses of wine later, Mindy found the one. It was a Chanel, from the Hearts Afire collection. It was a rich jewel-tone pink, made from a buttery leather. The strap went across her body so the heart landed around her hip.

“And since it’s a heart bag,” Joan said, her eyes sparkling, “you can remove the straps and use these clips to keep his heart over yours.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mindy said. “We’re not dating or anything.”

Joan’s smile faltered, not returning until Mindy pulled out her credit card.

***

Mindy braced herself for a barrage of stupid comments when she walked in to the office on Monday. Her heart bag was very glamorous, and everyone would probably gather around her as usual to ask her where she got it and _ugh_ , she was already exhausted.

But instead, everyone was busy doing actual work, and her first patient was early, and she didn’t get a break until practically the middle of the day.

She was nuking a Lean Cuisine when Danny wandered in.

“You couldn’t do that,” he said, nodding at the TV, where a very nice lesbian was pulling a golden bird from the oven.

“It’s the Food Network. If it was the Baby Delivering Network, I’d have my own show, and it would be called _Dr. Mindy, Hot MD_.” She turned, and there was the heart bag, in full view.

“That show sounds absolutely—” and he paused, seeing that bag. She could feel his heart beating faster. All weekend, it had pulsed with a steady beat, a rhythmic reminder that Danny, of all people, wanted her to have his heart. Now, though, it was beating double-time. “Terrible. Absolutely terrible. Is that...?”

“It is,” she said, her lunch forgotten. She held up the bag, feeling reluctant to actually take it off.

Danny took a step closer and wrapped his fingers around hers. She felt her heart beating in her chest, and his beating in her bag, and she was reminded of that scene in _The Shop Around the Corner_ , when Jimmy Stewart revealed to Margaret Sullavan that he’d been the one that had mailed his heart to her. That took some serious balls, trusting a heart to the postal service, although maybe people just trusted governmental agencies more in Belize or wherever. She licked her lips, just in case.

“Merry Christmas, Mindy,” he said. “You take care of it.” And he left, just like that.

***

The hospital wasn’t the worst place to spend New Years Eve, though only Queens was worse.

Nicholas Christopher Wilson was born at 10:10 pm. Twenty one inches, seven pounds, two and a half ounces, fingers, toes, the whole package. Delivering with a purse was frowned upon in the medical profession, and she couldn’t just leave in her locker, so she’d kept it tucked up in her rack. At the very end, just as Sarah was doing her final push, she’d felt the heart pound and had seen Danny peeking at her through the window. She’d waved.

She didn’t see him again until about an hour later in the doctor’s lounge. He’d been drinking coffee, slouching and staring off into space like some weirdo. She was glad to see him.

“Sit up, Danny, I have to show you something.”

He smiled cautiously at her, his eyes immediately drawn to her bag.

“Focus,” she said, snapping her fingers. “My boobs are up here.” She reached into her chest and pulled out her own heart.

“Are you— what are you doing?” he asked. “Are those staples?”

“I’m not great at sewing,” she admitted.

“You can’t use staples, for Christsakes.”

“That’s not what I wanted to show you.” She flipped her heart over to show him what it said.

“ _Danny_ ,” he read. “You got this tattooed? Is that your handwriting?”

“Fat Tony on Broadway, he’s amazing. I provided the writing sample, and it’s basically exactly how I write your name. Angelina did the same thing with Brad.”

“Are those friends of yours?”

“Ha ha.” If Angelina could do that with a guy who was technically still married to America’s Sweetheart and tell _US Weekly_ that it was just a sign of affection, then she could do the same while she sorted this Danny thing out.

Besides, she always wanted a tattoo.

“Can I—” he asked, and she handed her heart to him. He looked at it with awe and reverence.

“I’m not really the give away my heart type—” she started.

“Really? I assumed you gave it to each of those bozos you date,” he said.

“ _No_ , and shut up. I’ve actually never given it away, not even when I was engaged.”

He tried to hide his surprise, but Mindy knew that thing he did with his jaw, so.

“And, let’s be clear, that’s not what’s happening now. I’m not— we’re not even dating, you know? But I got the tattoo because even though we aren’t even together, you’re still important to me for reasons I’ve never quite understood.” She didn't mention that his name was on her life line, because he'd call reading hearts 'garbage' and roll his eyes and tell her that _you're the only one in charge of your future_.

He looked at her heart, and she touched her chest. She rarely took it out, just for breakups, and now this tattoo, and whenever she had before, she’d be anxious to get it back in. But with Danny holding it, she felt calm, like the heart beating steadily at her hip.

He held her heart out to her, cradled in his hands. “This is yours.”

“It is,” she said, and when she took it back, it was beating way faster than it should be. She placed it into her chest.

“Thank you for that,” he said. “Letting me hold it, I mean.” They sat together in companionable silence, watching the Times Square celebration.

“It’s almost midnight,” he said, his casual tone belied by the increased pace of his heart.

“Did you want to count down?”

“No, I wanted to wanted to—” and he leaned over and kissed her. His lips were soft on hers, though slightly chapped because his skincare regime was probably terrible. He pulled back, his eyes a question mark.

_Ten, nine, eight, seven..._

She grabbed a handful of his doctor’s coat, pulling him back into her. He grabbed her jaw to steady himself, and this time they parted lips, and Danny was surprisingly good at kissing.

It reminded her of the end of _Clueless_ when Alicia Silverstone kissed perpetual hottie Paul Rudd (right after she shyly showed him her heart) right before fading to black.

***

The thing no one ever talked about, when it came to hearts, was how terrifying it was to have sex next to them.

The third time Danny came over for sex (or beer and pizza and sex and breakfast the next morning, if one wanted to be precise) was the time he started going for the weird sex stuff. It wasn’t that he was kinky, exactly, but he liked to switch it up, and he tried to twist her into a position she was pretty sure was only possible for ballerinas. With her one ankle somewhere past his shoulder and the other curled up under her butt, they were already unstable, and when he tried to do this thing with his hand he lost his balance and almost toppled onto the heart.

Mindy didn’t have great reflexes, according to her GP, but she rolled over pretty quickly to shove Danny. He missed the heart and hit the floor instead.

“Oh thank god,” she said, picking up her pink bag.

“I’m fine,” Danny said from the floor. “Except for the big, throbbing headache I’m going to have in the morning.”

“The only thing big and throbbing should—”

“Oh no,” he said, glaring at her from the floor. “You don’t get to sexy talk your way out of this. You pushed me.” He stood up, overplaying his completely minor head injury.

“You almost crushed it!” she said, the bag looking ridiculously out of place, slung around her naked body. “You have to be careful!”

“You could also not be so weird about putting it on the pillow next to us.”

“Shut up, Danny,” she said, kissing him so she didn’t have to explain that she pretty much never let the heart out of her sight. She’d purchased a special shower box that kept it safe even during her most intense hair conditioning treatments. But that was a difficult conversation, and distracting him was easy.

After that, they tried other ideas to varying degrees of success. Danny flat-out refused to let her keep it pinned to her bra because that required her to keep her bra on, and that just wasn’t happening. She was adamant that it couldn’t be in a drawer. He didn’t want it on the pillows because sometimes he needed them for leverage and he wasn’t going to move her damn bag every time he wanted to angle her hips.

She called Gwen.

She knew that Gwen had handed over her heart to her husband ages before he gave her his. But Gwen seemed pretty blase about it. _Oh, I think I just hung it up on the door handle or something. I mean, that’s where it was most of the time, when I was at work or in the shower or—_. Mindy interrupted to ask if she slept with it in her bed so she could listen to the beat, like really expensive but subtle noise machine, and Gwen just laughed and asked if Mindy was _sure_ she wasn’t developing feelings, and to please call more regularly.

The next time Danny came over, which was that night, because he was really good at picking up take-out and also because he was an excellent big spoon, Mindy decided to be less weird about the heart.

She left the heart on her bedside table as she stripped off her sweats, and fell into bed with him as she always did. They was mid- Danny’s favorite reverse crab horse whatever position (which was really cramping her left calf, but _oh_ , was it worth it) when there was a minor avalanche of _Cosmos_ from on top her dresser, which fell like a glossy-paged waterfall, knocking over a week-old wine glass and a bottle of Beyonce’s perfume. The wine glass hit the edge of the trash can, shattering it and spraying chunks of glass everywhere.

Danny rolled over her, burying his eyes in her hair, covering her face as best he could. He made her stay like that while he checked the bed for broken glass. He was so focused on the two of them, he didn’t even notice that the heart— _his_ heart, Danny’s beautiful heart she’d been entrusted with— now had a shard of glass through it.

Until that moment, Mindy’s biggest freak-outs were usually related to hemlines and the availability of fashions for curvaceous figures, but this one put those all to shame.

“Stop— don’t worry— Mindy, it’s fine, we’ll fix it, just please stop crying.” Danny handed her tissues, most of which she threw onto the floor next to her.

“But I broke your heart,” she wailed.

“Every damn day,” he muttered.

“I have to fix this.” She wiped her face off using his shirt, then ran to her desk.

“Is that what I think— Mindy, no, not the stapler!” Danny looked aghast, even though she’d completely fixed his heart.

“You realize what we have to do, right?” Mindy asked.

“Take away your access to office supplies?”

“We have to switch hearts,” she said, her voice resolute.

“As in switch hearts? Why?”

“Because. It’s the only way to keep them safe, if I have yours and you have mine and they’re inside us.”

“No, that’s ridiculous. I don’t want you to make some _empty_ gesture because you’re _afraid_ ,” Danny said, turning away from her.

“What, do you need the space to store extra quarters? Look at me,” Mindy said, sitting herself on his lap. It was one of his favorite sexual positions, and they were still both naked except for Danny’s refusal to take off his socks in bed, but this wasn’t about sex.

She hugged him tightly. “I just want to keep your heart close to me all the time,” she whispered.

“Oh,” he said. “ _Oh_. Well, that’s a different story.”

***

It was such a rom-com cliche, but she really had fallen in love with his heart first.


End file.
